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A7V
The A7V was a tank introduced by Germany in 1918, near the end of World War I. One hundred vehicles were ordered in early 1918, but only 20 were delivered. They were used in action from March to October of that year, and were the only tanks produced by Germany in World War I to be used in operations. Operational History The A7V was first used in combat on 21 March 1918. Five tanks of Abteilung I under the command of Hauptmann Greiff were deployed north of the St. Quentin Canal. Three of the A7Vs suffered mechanical failures before they entered combat, but the remaining pair helped stop a minor British breakthrough in the area, but otherwise saw little combat that day. The first tank against tank combat in history took place on 24 April 1918 when three A7Vs (including chassis number 561, known as "Nixe") taking part in an attack with infantry incidentally met three Mark IVs (two female machine gun-armed tanks and one male with two 6-pounder guns near Villers-Bretonneux. During the battle tanks on both sides were damaged. According to the lead tank commander, Second Lieutenant Frank Mitchell, the female Mk IVs fell back after being damaged by armour-piercing bullets. They were unable to damage the A7Vs with their own machine guns. Mitchell then attacked the lead German tank, commanded by Second Lieutenant Wilhelm Biltz, with the 6 pounders of his own tank and knocked it out. He hit it three times, and killed five of the crew when they bailed out. He then went on to rout some infantry with case shot. The two remaining A7Vs in turn withdrew. As Mitchell's tank withdrew from action, seven Whippet tanks also engaged the infantry. Four of these were knocked out in the battle, and it is unclear if any of them engaged the retreating German tanks. Mitchell's tank lost a track towards the end of the battle from a mortar shell and was abandoned. The damaged A7V was later recovered by German forces. Three detachments Abteilungen of five tanks each were at Villers-Bretonneux at the head of the four German divisions committed over a 4 mile front. One tank refused to start, but the fourteen that saw action achieved some success, and the British recorded that their lines were broken by the tanks. Two A7Vs toppled over into holes, and some encountered engine or armament troubles. After a counterattack, three fell into Allied hands. One was unusable and scrapped, one was used later for shell testing by the French, and the third was eventually recovered by Australian troops. In May, A7Vs used in an attack on the French near Soissons, during the Third Battle of the Aisnewere were unable to cross a wide trench known as the "Dardanelles". On 15 July, at Rheims (during the Second Battle of the Marne), the Germans put eight A7Vs and twenty captured Mk IVs against the French lines. Although 10 of the Mk IVs were lost in this action, no A7Vs were lost. The final use in World War I of A7Vs was in a small but successful action on 11 October 1918, near Iwuy. The A7V was not considered a success, and other designs were planned by Germany. However the end of the war meant none of the other tanks in development, or planned ones, would be finished (such as the Oberschlesien, the 120-ton K-Wagen, and the light LK I or LK II). The extremely limited production of twenty made a very minor contribution, and most of the tanks (about 50 in total) that were fielded in action by Germany in World War I were captured British Mark IV tanks (Beutepanzer). In contrast, the French had produced over 3,600 of their light Renault FT, the most numerous tank of World War I, and the British over 2,500 of their heavy Mark I to V* tanks. Two lightly armoured vehicles broadly resembling the A7V, one of which was named "Hedi", were used by a Freikorps tank unit to quell civil unrest in Berlin in 1919, and were constructed after the war, using the chassis from ''Überlandwagen''s and armed with four MG08/15 machine guns. Some sources say that several A7Vs were handed over by France to Polish forces and used during the Russo-Polish war of 1920. However, the fate of each A7V that saw service in WWI is known, and there is no known official record or photographic evidence of A7Vs in Polish service. >The design of the A7V featured on the tank badge of 1921, awarded to commemorate service in the German Panzer forces of 1918. Category:Vehicles Category:Land vehicles Category:Armoured vehicles Category:Tanks Category:Heavy tanks Category:AFV Category:WW1